Thought Picnic: Meeting Your Estranged Children Where They Are

Adapting to a Changing World

I am constantly told that I need to make allowances for the older generation because they are set in their ways. This might be true, but the world is always changing around us, and thriving in any community requires steady, sometimes sudden, adaptations if we are to relate to people, events, ideas, and circumstances.

Whilst reading an article on LinkedIn titled “Meeting Your Resistant Children Where They Are”, I immediately realised that it seemed to address only one part of the wider issue of relationships. The article focused more on divorced parents and their apparently adolescent children, and I appreciate that the writer's area of expertise is divorce and parenting.

If I were to extrapolate, however, the issue extends well beyond divorce, which is merely one of the elements contributing to the breakdown of relationships, just as resistance is only one facet of parent-child estrangement.

The Generational Cycle

It is interesting to observe how we all move through the generational phases of life, beginning as children with parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, and then transitioning through these phases as those who came before us begin to drop off, in that natural cycle of life.

How we relate to those before us sometimes follows an established code of community, reverence, and respect. What rarely finds adequate scrutiny is the need to adapt for those who come after us.

For instance, when does a parent begin to see their child as an adult, one to be treated with some acknowledgement and, I dare say, respect for their autonomy, independence, initiative, and decision-making?

A Personal Reflection

Then again, this topic is probably too broad to be addressed in a blog, or from an amateur's background, even with the lived experience that might cloud one's judgement. My parents were never divorced; rather, with the palpable tension, the middle-aged theatrics, and the passage of time, they grew apart.

It might have been better had they gone their separate ways a long time ago, rather than being hemmed in by middle-class values until their cohabitation became untenable. Each kept their own record of what the other might or might not have done, and we, the children, were corralled into narratives that expected us to take sides; in the main, we tended to remain neutral.

However, to bring this conversation back on course, there is where my parents expect me to be, where they see me, and where I actually am. These are entirely different places. Whether I am a child, an adult, pliant, or recalcitrant, I can only wonder whether I am all of these at the same time. The fact that I have never been a parent might inform other perspectives.

Naming the Thing

Still, there is a name for the thing I am circling, and I only came upon it recently: relational maturity. It is not the same as being agreeable, nor the same as being patient, though it borrows freely from both. It is, rather, the capacity to meet another person where they actually stand, without insisting they first travel to where we happen to be waiting for them. I had felt its absence for a lifetime without ever knowing what to call it.

The question that follows is not a comfortable one: who is obliged to do the adjusting? Tradition has a ready answer, that the younger defers to the older and the child to the parent, and like most tidy arrangements, it survives chiefly because it serves the people who designed it.

Relational maturity refuses this one-way traffic. It accepts that adjustment must flow in both directions, that the parent who demands reverence might first ask whether they have offered acknowledgement. I say this as a sexagenarian, mind you, and not as a young firebrand with a grievance, for I am now of the very generation that is customarily granted the latitude I am here declining to claim.

There is a temptation to mistake all this for weakness, as though meeting people where they are were merely a polite word for capitulation. It is nothing of the sort. The mature party is not the one who folds; it is the one who can hold their own position firmly whilst still granting the other their dignity and their difference. Anyone can be tolerant of those who already agree with them; the test arrives with the person who does not.

And yet relational maturity is not infinite. There comes a point where meeting someone where they are reveals only that they have no intention of moving, and no interest in your moving either. At that juncture, the mature response is not to keep travelling toward a meeting that will never take place, but to disengage calmly and without rancour, which is itself a form of maturity.

Snipping the Cord

Certain interactions have rubbed me up the wrong way, and my reaction has usually been to disengage. People, and this goes beyond parents to siblings, relations, friends, and others you encounter throughout life, seem to forget that, regardless of what they assume ties you together, you can snip the cord and walk away, unbound, unfettered, and unconcerned.

The way you address and talk to people, their slight and unfortunate expressions of indifference, and the use of words that fail to give credence to the multifaceted nature of a person, or that fail to acknowledge the changes we see in ourselves and in others, can alter things so radically as to put them beyond redemption.

Tradition Versus Individuality

Tradition might dictate one thing, but personalities are individual and unique; they may not conform to any prescribed norms and may fall entirely outside our common frames of reference.

The question, then, becomes whether you are ready to shift your position, find common ground, seek resolution, and even accept that you were wrong, despite your ways being set in reinforced concrete.

The Cost of Indifference

I remember conversations and interactions that informed my decision to withdraw fellowship from certain people. You may not realise you have done something wrong, albeit inadvertently, but whoever is doing the kicking is rarely the one doing the hurting.

There might be another way to work through this, yet I am only human, and there is a dignity in that which demands the courtesy of others, regardless of the ties.

Restrict this ever-constant need to adapt our relationships, the need that keeps conversation thriving and engaged, all in the name of conserving what we think we hold dear, and the consequences will be exactly where we find ourselves, whether we are involved or not.

Honour and Provocation

Parents tend to think of estranged children as personifications of the Prodigal Son. Yet we, the children, eventually begin to see our parents with all their flaws, and for all the care and responsibility that went into their parenting, they were never in the class of God; they were simply human. Where the holy book says, “honour your father and mother”, it also says, “do not provoke your children unto wrath”.

Someone really ought to write an academic study on “Meeting Your Estranged Children Where They Are”.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Thought Picnic: Knowing where you are from where you imagine you are

Cool this thing down

I remember attending an interview decades ago for a role that honestly paid peanuts with the European Space Agency, it was nothing as promising as if I were invited to work or even do an internship at NASA, the two men in weather-worn suits probably blasted too many times by solar flares and moon dust posed questions to which I responded earnestly and knowledgeably, but I somehow did not impress them.

When the agency got back to me, the report was, I was too laid back, I think I saw that more as a compliment than a criticism, my thinking was, if I was involved in putting a rocket under someone to send them out to space, we need cool heads, not hotheads. In fact, I take pride in being professionally laid back and that does not mean being lazy.

Easy on the busy

I just do not like to be carried away by the clamour and the tumult that surrounds issues, problems, or emergencies at work. We need to be able to stand back to see what is going on, gather our thoughts and methodically approach the issue. After applying ourselves for a full day at work, I would rather we return early the next day after a good break with fresh heads and ideas, beavering away overnight is the stuff of diminishing returns. Lots of activity and no achievement.

It is probably a temperament thing, usually observed at work, but applicable to other areas of my life, I can anticipate, but I do not fret; I could be concerned, but refrain from worrying; when it seems, a situation is getting too much, I would go to bed instead and sleep it over. The things I can control I apply myself to, and the things I at the time am clueless about, I can accept as my contemporaneous incapacity or infirmity, if things change for the better, that is fine, otherwise, we move on.

You are where you are

I guess the way I view things is only to cross the bridge when I am at the bridge, if I am still on the journey to the bridge, there might be circumstances where, in encounter or in realisation, the bridge is just one option out of many to choose from, in which case, it might be easier to ford, to swim, or to ferry, you might even avoid having to cross any obstacle to your destination. You have to know where you are from where you imagine or fear you are.

We are given the moment with all the vicissitudes of life and uncertainty to already deal with, success and progress with that particular moment can determine how well the rest of your journey goes. Like in the game of chess, much as you can think 10 moves ahead, you cannot play the 10 moves in a go.

Be ready and able to change tack

You have to play your move and your opponent play theirs, their move might not have been accounted for in your analysis and then you have to recalibrate the whole strategy you have towards winning the game in which you might well get beaten, no matter how good your imagined 10 moves ahead were.

This applies to many things in life, for the preparation, anticipation, and orderliness in the things we have planned, we need to make allowances for sudden or progressive alterations that could be quite impactful and outside our control. This is not to say we are then helpless against fate, not by the kind of intellect, initiative, and intuitiveness that we have been gifted, we are adaptable, applying ourselves with a good understanding of when a scalpel, a blade, a knife, or a sword is needed.

That is a skill that comes from learning, experience, expertise, mentoring, or just sheer luck, it does not matter, we keep living because we are living and, in the process, write a better story of how we have lived. Selah!

Coexisting with generational shifts by adaptation

Inspired from Facebook

On the usual scans of my Facebook timeline, I came across a post by a good friend of mine about the issue of developing emotional attachments between generations. Much of what he had to say I could very well agree with, but I also had an additional viewpoint which I have extracted from my comment into this blog. [Facebook]

I started with this, “Much as I can agree with you, this part I have thought about for a long time.”

Time and environment

I needed to address this particular statement, “You young people need to be kinder to your parents. They are the products of their time and environment.”

It is a good getaway clause, but in my 50s I have learnt I can't use generational exculpation to excuse myself from the responsibilities of emotional engagement with relations across the full spectrum of existence.

I have my generation and the times in which I grew up along with the environments that have helped cultivate my outlook and worldview, yet, I have to coexist with those before me; from when I was a child had parents, grandparents and a great-grandmother along with extended family and other relations,  and those after me; two generations now, of nieces and nephews and their children, along with the extended family that has grown out of the relationships they have cultivated, not only to be relevant but to also have a sense of belonging.

Generational shifts we belong in

My parents have by fate or fortune had to deal with issues they would never have countenanced in their core generation, from the 1960s into the 1980s, but have had to find accommodations for in the three growing generations after them, of children, of grandchildren and possibly great-grandchildren. My father was 80 on Saturday.

We have had our differences, we still do, but slowly he began to recognise that he can't always have his way as the opinions of his middle-aged children begin to dominate and determine the direction of issues. It was hard-won, but education on all sides. I have to learn that difference does not have to exacerbate conflict. Where I am infuriated, I need to find the necessary communication of persuasion, amelioration and compromise, to an extent.

Have a voice that can be heard

Yes, we probably should do more to engender better communion with our parents who are still with us, but if we fail to use our voices at the critical and crucial times, where there are many occasions for it, we would never have a say when it really matters, or when we do, they would be too deaf to hear or heed. Then, it becomes impossible and differences would become irreconcilable. Sadly, the end of this is regret for could have, should have or would have been done give a new opportunity.

We all must coexist with generations, we met here and those we would eventually leave behind, that is the process of our growth it was the process of growth from time immemorial, no one gets excuses to be an island of immunity and impunity, parent, child or grandchild alike. That we must seize the moments and find ways to cherish them would matter for a lifetime.

Make love, not war

My friend ends with this useful, thoughtful and necessary advice, “Your parents wanting an emotional connection may be coming late, but it is what you always wanted, so embrace it now. Seize the moment. Make new memories. Make love, not war. And do not forget to take lots of selfies. Sooner or later, they will be gone.”

I guess we need to decide on what memories we want to have of our parents when there is a reckoning of the lives we have shared.